Hyderabad's Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University's crackdown on fake PhD certificates

To weed out fake PhD-degree holders who are teaching at private engineering colleges, the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTUH) has mandated all such faculty submit genuineness certificates of their PhD degrees obtained from the respective universities, along with the hard copies of the same.
Calling it a routine task of updating the database with freshly-awarded PhD degrees, registrar Professor N Yadaiah said attested photocopies of the certificates must be submitted to JNTU by the principals of affiliated colleges.

“After verification of these certificates, faculty with PhD qualification may need to appear before a Subject Expert Committee for performance evaluation,” he said.

In its communique, the varsity made it clear that only those faculty whose details are verified would be able to upload their PhD details. “If PhD candidates fail to submit the hard copies for verification by October 19, their PhD certificates will not be considered,” Prof Yadaiah added.
In 2018, JNTUH summoned around 100 faculty for verification of certificates in connection with dubious PhD degrees, and found that some had completed their degrees in lesser time than required, some did not



have the signature of their guides, and some did not have a copy of their thesis.

The faculty, meanwhile, are exasperated with the never-ending certificate-verification process, followed by personal verification. T Balakrishna Reddy, president of the Telangana Technical Institutions Employees Association, said that JNTUH has been in the process of verifying certificates for the past three years.

“It happens every academic year, but we are never given a proper explanation as to why a particular faculty’s credentials were deemed invalid,” he said, and added that there is no clarity on the number of faculty who have been disqualified on account of improper PhD degrees.

“We feel these are just attention-diversion tactics employed by the university to show that they are serious about vetting the credentials of faculty in affiliated colleges,” he said.
M Suresh Babu, a teacher with a private engineering college, said that despite its intention, it may not be possible for JNTUH to weed out faculty with dubious PhD degrees just by going through the degrees.

A lot of times, private and deemed universities assign such research guides to scholars who themselves are not doctorates,” he said.